Seeking Relief

Not All Adding Up

After Mitch left the hospital, he pulled up a number and dialed. Putting in an ear bud, he connected it to the Bluetooth on his phone.

“Hey. Heard you had a suicide attempt.” The other officer said as a way of hello.

“Yea. On paper it seems that way, but it didn’t feel that way when we found her.

“Oh?”

“Yea. It looked like she took medicine and drank over the course of the afternoon and evening. She had food out. Like what she did to herself was unintentional.”

“Oh. Surely, she’s not that naïve, though.”

“Surely. So, would you do me a favor, do some digging for me? My gut’s telling me there’s more to this and I need more information.”

“Will do. I’ll give you a call in an hour or 2.”

“Thanks.” Mitch disconnected the call. He pulled off into a parking lot and made another call. Perks of his job, he gets numbers that straight to phones in places. He hung on to every number he got in case it proved useful. The ones that have proved useful repeatedly is the number that goes directly to the nurse’s stations. He found the one that went straight to the ER nurse’s station. That one was actually saved directly in his contact list and not in a business card stash.

When the phone was picked up, he recognized the nurse that answered.

“Melissa! It’s Mitch with Merriam PD. Jake and Emmett brought in an alcohol and med overdose patient this evening. Has there been in progress?”

“Hey Mitch.” She said tiredly. Then continued, “The initial chaos has abated, but she’s not quite stable. Dr. Kincaid is still with her with a few of the others. Do you want me to have him call you when he can?”

“That would be great. Thank you.” He said. Then he hurriedly asked before she hung up, “Hey, Melissa. Uh. One more thing.” He paused.

“Yes?”

“Can you tell me what they did? That what that poor thing’s gone through already?”

He hears Melissa sigh on the phone.

“You know I can’t divulge patient information.” Mitch closes his eyes and lowers his head. But when she speaks again, he looks up again.

“But I can tell you that when we have a patient with alcohol and acetaminophen overdose, the first thing we do is a stomach pump. Then there is a type of antidote for the poisoning reaction the body does in respond to an acetaminophen overdose, and that is administered to a patient who already absorbed the medicine through their gut. When a patient takes that much medicine over a period of time and wasn’t discovered until much later, there is a high chance the medicine is absorbed. Which is not the usual for a typical suicide attempt with Tylenol overdose. When we know the rough amount of what was ingested, but unaware of absorption, a stomach pump proves that. Because what doesn’t come out, we know stayed in. Like a particular stomach pump that was seen here recently. I can also tell you that our department is getting pretty backed up with other patients waiting to be seen because we have a critical patient who went through a lot and is still being attended to. But she only has the doctor and a couple nurses that are mainly watching, which means that they are waiting for medicine to work its way into, uh, the patient’s system. And that they are just waiting for vitals to return to normal, before moving the patient to ICU.”

“Thank you.” Breathed Mitch.

“I will make sure Dr. Kincaid is aware that you are expecting a call from him.”

“Thanks, Melissa. Tell Kenny hi for me when you get home this morning.”

“Thanks, Mitch. Bye.” He heard the click of the phone, but he still held the phone to his ear. His mind was reeling a bit from a small revelation. She ingested handfuls of the medicine intermittently through the evening. She didn’t follow the stereotypical acetaminophen overdose suicide attempts by ingesting copious amounts at one time.

He reached in one of his pockets on his vest and pulled out his notebook. He flipped to the back and started his own string of note taking for the evening. He wrote down a few bullet points to attempt to organize his thoughts.

- Way medicine was ingested is not typical of suicide attempts (small amounts over time instead of large amount at one time)

- Things were still set up in apartment like she was going through her evening, planning on finishing her evening (food on counter, alcohol bottles caps were not screwed down to be put away)

- Apartment was clean/not neglected (may not be indicative of lack of depression)

- No note

- Blinds left open, lights still on (not hiding herself)

- Bottles of prescribed meds she took were prescribed for pain, no medicine prescribed for mental disorder/illness

The more Mitch wrote, the more thoughts came to him, and the more convinced he became that this wasn’t an intentional suicide attempt. He sat staring at his written notes lost in thought for quite some time. He only glanced up intermittently as a car passed by on the road.

More time must have passed than he realized, because his phone rang. He took a look at the screen and saw it was the officer that is at the office.

“Whatcha got?” He answered.

“So, your gal’s name is Jade Roads. Currently works at Exogenics as an admin yokel. She’s only been working there for 3 months. The apartment she was found in is under a Linn Mills, but Jade is on a sublet lease. No priors. No history of violence. Looks like she moved here from Montana. And, Mitch don’t get pissed about this, but brace yourself. She’s associated with the local battered women support group. Little chickie has a restraining order on the ex-boyfriend. Restraining order was granted 2 months ago.”

“Thanks Snyder, that is some insight. But why would she ingest all of that, if she’s away from him and making her life better finally?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Thanks man, for digging that up. We’ll catch up with you later.”

“No prob. You’ve done it for me before and I’m sure there’ll be another time.”

Laughing, Mitch answered, “You’re right about that man. I’ll see you later.”

“Later.” Once again, Mitch disconnected the call on his phone. Still no text or anything from Adam. Mitch sighed, threw his vehicle in drive and decided to do one of his usual patrols.